


Exercises in Free Will

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Van Helsing (2004)/Luther (2003)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whilst on the trail of an Etruscan demon, Gabriel recalls pieces of his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Includes some dialogue from the 2003 Universal film 'Luther'.  
> Originally published in _Horizontal Mosaic_ 9 (Blackfly Press).

The sun had been setting for half an hour. Already the dusk was stealing in to lengthen the shadows of the old tombs that lay to the east of Via Aurelia. Clustered thickly together on the ridge above the river, the tombs were strange mounds of earth and stone. Locals of Tarquinia whispered to one another that restless spirits lived in the mounds, and so most sensible people avoided the area after sundown.

Paoli Bonate had always thought that they looked like beehives, and who could be afraid of beehives? Besides, he had no time for such superstitions. He was a God-fearing man who always carried with him a clutch of saints' medal lions. Each small silver disc was embossed with the image of a saint, and on the reverse was inscribed a prayer. Bonate knew them all by heart and would spend an hour every evening reciting each one; his fingers as busy with counting off each medallion as his wife's were on the rosary.

Bonate whistled for his dog as he left the road and climbed the slope towards the ancient necropolis. He had decided to take the long way home, hoping to postpone a confrontation with his wife about the cost of their daughter's wedding garments. He doubted Lucia would see sense. Bonate was of the opinion that women, including his wife and daughter, seemed to prefer pretty gowns, hair ornaments and new shoes to the more practical gift of a piece of land just outside the village.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the dog barking madly. Bonate glanced around at the tombs but could not see the animal anywhere. "Seneca!" he called, and he heard the dog whine nearby.

"Seneca, come on, now." He bent down to retrieve a pebble from the path between three tombs and knocked it against the circular wall of the tomb in front of him. His dog was a foolish creature and loved to chase stones. Usually the rattle of a few pebbles brought Seneca running, but this time the animal stayed away.

Still holding onto the stone, Bonate wandered around the tombs. He called the dog's name a few more times, his unease growing. It was getting dark in the necropolis, dark and cold even though the sun still lingered in the sky. He pushed through the overgrown grass that obscured the path and climbed up onto the ridge.

"Seneca! Seneca!"

He thought he heard a faint _woof_ to his left, and so scrambled back down amongst the tombs; talking aloud the whole time, more for his own reassurance than for the dog: "There's a good boy, nearly got you—bad dog, running off like that! But no harm done, we'll go home, and Daddy will give you the mutton scraps…"

He heard a whine and a sharp yelp from just ahead of him, and he hurried forwards. Then, as he rounded a corner, he saw a terrible sight.

Seneca lay on the ground outside the open door of another tomb. The dog's legs were still twitching, but Bonate thought—prayed—that the animal was already dead. Its belly was slit open and the entrails spilled out so that the blood soaked into the earth. Crouched above the dog was a creature the like of which Bonate had never seen before… and that he never wanted to see again.

It was taller than a man, blue-skinned and ugly, with an upturned nose and big, black-rimmed yellow eyes. It wore gold jewellery: hoops through its ears, armlets and anklets and bracelets tight around its limbs. It had bright red hair and a beard, and from its back sprouted dark, soft-feathered wings. In its hands it held an axe, from which Seneca's blood slowly dripped.

Paoli Bonate did what most sensible men would not—with all his might, he flung the stone he held in his hand directly at the blue demon.

The demon glanced up at him and then bared its teeth. It stepped over Seneca's torn body and came towards Bonate, hefting its axe.

"God save me!" he shrieked, grabbing for his saints' medallions. The clasp of the chain that held them together broke, and the silver discs rained down into his outstretched palms. He caught them clumsily, and without thinking he hurled them at the approaching demon.

"Back!" he shouted, "get back!"— and then he did what most sensible men would do: he turned tail and fled.


	2. Chapter 2

Three days later, two men left the safety of the Vatican and began the journey to Tarquinia, a place that lies some fifty-six miles from Rome. They rode on two bay horses taken from the pontifical stables and drew the attention of passers-by along the Via Aurelia.

One was tall and dark, dressed in heavy black cotton and a long leather coat. He wore a hat pulled low across his fore head and occasionally muffled the lower part of his face with a neckerchief emblazoned with a mysterious symbol. His companion was small and fair, wearing the grey robes of a Franciscan friar and carrying behind the saddle a large, oddly shaped bag of belongings.

If any of the curious passers-by could have listened in on the conversation between these two men, they would have realised that they were in the middle of an argument.

"…and honestly, Van Helsing, I still don't know why the village priest couldn't handle it."

"He tried. Or weren't you paying attention to that part?"

"Of course I was paying attention. It's just that this seems more like an exorcism than anything else, and I was in the middle of something quite important…"

Gabriel Van Helsing grinned. "You're always in the middle of something important, Carl. I don't know how you find the time to sleep."

"I do wish you'd take my work seriously. Where would you be now if I hadn't invented that gas-propelled crossbow, eh? You'd be vampire-food in the basement of Castle Dracula, that's where," Carl finished smugly, folding his arms across his chest and almost dropping the reins.

"I'd have managed."

Carl picked up the reins again as his horse trotted towards the side of the road. "No, you wouldn't. No shame in admit ting it, Van Helsing: you know you need me."

"Of course I do," said Gabriel, tongue in cheek. "You make an extraordinarily good bed-warmer."

"And not just for that!" Carl glared at him.

Gabriel shrugged and tried to keep a straight face. "Naturally I admire your brain as well as your more pleasing physical features…"

"Oh, do stop it. You'll make me blush."

"I already did."

Carl spluttered. "Oh—damn it!"

Gabriel laughed; then said, "But let's be serious, now. Jinette obviously thinks this is more than just your average demon, otherwise exorcism would have worked, and you would still be in the middle of something important in the Vatican laboratories."

"It's because it's in Tarquinia, isn't it?" Carl said, settling back in the saddle. "Those sorts of places—Etruscan necro polises, I mean—always make Jinette jumpy. Roman cemeteries are fine, because most of them got built over or re-used by the early Christians. It's easy to contain a demon that pops out of a pagan Roman grave. Or so I've heard."

Gabriel gave him an amused look. "You heard right. Com pared to Dracula and his Brides, slaying a Roman demon is child's play. Even you could do it."

"Is that a vote of confidence or—"

"The Etruscans," Gabriel said before Carl could reach the end of his sentence, "what do we know about the Etrus cans?"

He watched with amusement as Carl urged his mount closer, so neither of them had to shout over the noise of the horses' hooves on the half metalled, half cobbled road. They were approaching the coast now. The condition of the Via Aurelia worsened with each mile away from Rome, and Carl already seemed saddle-sore. The prospect of another dozen hours on horseback made him look decidedly glum.

"Do you think it's an Etruscan demon?" Carl asked.

Gabriel shrugged. "I've no idea. I guess we'll find out when we meet it. But it pays to know as much as possible in advance about an enemy—that's why I was asking what you knew about the Etruscans."

Carl nodded and looked thoughtful. "Oh, dear. Let me see what I can remember from all those years of study. Well, they pre-dated the Romans, and apparently, although people don't much like to admit this, they actually built a great deal of ancient Rome. Very clever people, they were. They just didn't have the military strength to see off the Romans…"

"Very few people did," Gabriel said with a snort. "What about the Greeks? Weren't they involved with the Etrus cans?"

"Sort of, I think." Carl frowned at the road ahead of him. "I'm afraid I don't really know all that much about it. My areas of expertise are invention and theology, and ancient history where it interacts with theology—you know, Plato and Aristotle, that sort of thing."

Gabriel snorted, and so Carl added: "I don't think anybody knows a great deal about the Etruscans. Not really. I mean, they had their own language, but it's like gibberish. We can read it, but nobody can understand it."

"Nobody, huh?"

There must have been something in his voice, for Carl looked up and said hopefully. "I say, Van Helsing, I don't suppose you can remember if you ever—"

Gabriel glared at him. "No. I don't remember."

"Oh."

With Carl reduced to silence for a while, Gabriel leaned back in his saddle and listened to the clatter of hooves. The surface of the road had been reduced to the original Roman construction. The cobbles were large and wide, the joins between each slab so tight that not even a blade of grass had managed to penetrate through. On either side of the road were drainage channels, now clogged with horse excrement and bits of rubbish thrown away by travellers.

Gabriel lifted his head and looked at the glitter of the sea. The afternoon sunlight made it seem like a shifting pattern of blue and gold and silver. There was a gentle breeze that waved the wildflowers on the side of the road and brought with it the faint tang of salt.

"There's one more thing about the Etruscans," Carl said suddenly, breaking the silence between them.

Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "What's that, then?"

"They believed in Hell."

"So did a lot of people—" Gabriel began, but Carl inter rupted him.

"Not like this. From what I recall, most ancient civilisations had a concept akin to Heaven and Hell that developed to gether, along with the idea of Purgatory. But the Etruscans—not that we know for certain, of course; we can only guess from their art—they began by painting only scenes of Heaven in their tombs…"

Gabriel gave him a suspicious look. "How do you know that, if you've never been out of Rome without me?"

"Oh really, Van Helsing!" Carl tutted. "I don't spend _all_ my time in laboratories, you know. There are museums in Rome. And in the Vatican. And in the basements adjoining my laboratory, there are some rather rare and exciting objects… including an Etruscan tomb."

"What, the whole thing?" Gabriel's eyebrows lifted higher in disbelief.

"Well, no. Of course not. Just the paintings from the in terior."

"I see. And…?"

Carl sighed and gave Gabriel a pointed look. "And if you would stop interrupting me, you would know already, wouldn't you?"

"Sorry."

"No, you're not. Anyway, as I was saying: the Etruscans used to paint scenes of Heaven—and _only_ of Heaven—until one day, they started to include scenes of Hell, with green and blue demons and objects of torture and flames and, oh, all sorts of horrible things!"

Gabriel blinked. "Just like that?"

"Well, something must have happened to make them aware of Hell," Carl said. "But nobody knows what that could have been. It would help if we could understand their language. Van Helsing, are you absolutely _sure_ that you never did any, ah, 'business' with the Etruscans…?"

"Quite positive." He turned his head to examine the sweep of the coast that gradually unfurled itself as they headed towards Civitavecchia. "These paintings of Hell. Were they all in one tomb?"

Carl frowned, trying to remember. "I don't think so. In fact, I seem to remember that one side of the tomb was painted with Heaven, and the other side showed Hell."

"Sounds like they were trying to avoid predestination by showing both options," Gabriel said, amused.

Carl huffed. "Really, Van Helsing. You make them sound almost Lutheran."

"Maybe they were." He gave Carl a cheeky grin. "After all, you can't understand their language. Who's to say what they really believed?"

"Hmm," Carl said, dubious. "Well, I'm sure we'll find out all too soon."

"Let's not rush into anything." Gabriel nodded ahead at the distant shape of a town. "We'll find somewhere to stay at Civitavecchia and carry on to Tarquinia tomorrow."

Carl tried unsuccessfully to hide his relief. "I thought you'd be eager to slay the demon as quickly as possible."

"Then you thought wrong. I'd rather get a decent night's rest." Gabriel glanced sidelong at Carl and smiled. "And I'd rather know Heaven before I have to do battle with Hell."

Blushing furiously, Carl shrank down into the huddle of his grey robes. "Well. Yes. I see your point."

"Good." Gabriel dug his heels into his horse's flanks. "Civitavecchia before sundown. I'll race you."


	3. Chapter 3

"I'll race you…" The words seemed to echo behind Martin as he pushed through the thronging crowds that congregated around the huge, honey-coloured palace of San Giovanni in Laterano. He had never seen so many people before, of so many different nationalities, speaking so many different tongues; but they all had one thing in common: their faith—the faith of the most Holy Catholic Church.

They were not here to catch a glimpse of the Pope, His Holiness Julius II, for that glorious prince had ridden out only a few days ago to join battle against the Venetians. Martin had seen him: wearing gilt armour and mounted on a finely caparisoned white stallion, the Pope had galloped through the narrow Roman streets trailing dozens of Swiss Guards in his wake.

The pilgrims, including Martin and his companions, had shrunk back against the walls to watch in amazement. The Romans, who were rather more accustomed to the whims of their pontiff, had waved him on and cheered at the thought of victory over an enemy state.

It was during that moment, as Martin stepped back to avoid the trampling hooves of the Pope's escort, when Gabriel appeared to him again.

"Careful, Martin Luther. It is not God's wish for you to die for your faith."

Startled, Martin turned to face the man—the angel, he reminded himself fiercely—who had saved him from the lightning bolt five years earlier. That storm, that terrible storm…

Martin could still recall the hiss and snap of the lightning, the desolation of that road between Mansfeld and Erfurt, and his utter conviction that he was going to die. He remembered his prayer to St. Anne, cried aloud in despera tion: "If you will spare me, I shall become a monk!"

And then there was nothing. No rain, no thunder, no howling wind—and no lightning. When Martin found the courage to look up, he realised that he was cowering at the feet of a tall, dark-haired creature that seemed to glow like the phospho rus that could sometimes be found in his father's mines.

The creature smiled at him, and before he could get to his feet, it said, "You are safe. God has plans for you, Martin Luther. You will see me again."

Bewildered, but grateful, Martin reached up in appeal. "What name may I call you, my saviour, so I know to whom I may give thanks?"

The creature's smile intensified. "You may call me… Gab riel."

"Gabriel?" Martin repeated, mystified; but the creature vanished in a blinding flash that rivalled the lightning, and he was left alone, kneeling in the mud of the road with the rain pouring down upon him.

He had not seen Gabriel again until that moment two days ago when he'd first set eyes on Pope Julius II. Martin thought it was a glorious irony, to have seen both a pope and an angel within the same moment. Of them both, he found that Gabriel felt the most real. Unlike the Pope, Martin could reach out and touch Gabriel.

"I thought you were an angel. An archangel, even," he began, tentatively stroking the linen cloth of Gabriel's sleeve as if he expected it to dissolve into celestial light. "But now I see you are just a man."

Gabriel smiled at him. "You see what you want to see, Martin. What did you expect—wings and a halo?"

Martin let go of Gabriel's sleeve and folded his hands primly within the sheltering black wool of his Augustinian robes. "That is how angels are usually depicted," he replied, without a trace of irony.

"By artists who have never seen an angel, of that I can assure you." Gabriel gestured that they should move away from the street with its procession of Swiss Guards and regular soldiers.

They moved along a passageway and emerged out onto another street that was busy with people and traffic. Nobody paid any attention to the monk and the man who walked beside him. Martin kept turning around to peer at Gabriel's back, a little disappointed that he could see no feathered wings. When at last he settled, allowing Gabriel to lead him where he willed, Martin asked the question that had troubled him for a long time.

"Why did you save me?"

Gabriel didn't even bother to look at him. "Because God has a plan for you."

Martin thought about this, and then shook his head. "I don't think so."

"You question the Almighty?"

"Every day." Martin stepped to one side to avoid a steaming pile of horse excrement and then hurried to catch up with the angel. When he spoke again, he sounded half angry and half afraid.

"You know why the abbot sent me to Rome? Because I don't believe enough. I thought I was saved—that you saved me—for some purpose, and yet it has been five years, and all I am capable of is spilling the Blood of Christ during Mass and stumbling over my prayers."

"God works His way in His own time," Gabriel told him, sounding blithely unconcerned. "You should not be so impa tient."

"I want to be worthy!" Martin almost hopped in his agita tion, then took hold of Gabriel's sleeve once more, pulling at the cloth as if to convince the angel of his sincerity. "I want to be worthy. That is all. I just lack conviction."

Gabriel smiled gently. "Oh, I think you will find it when you need it."

Martin gave him an uncertain look and subsided into silence. They walked side by side along the street, dodging the carts and horses and the peddlers selling splinters of the True Cross; avoiding the whores who whistled at every reli gious they saw; and stepping over pilgrims so devoted that they crawled rather than walked over the cobbles towards their goal: the papal palace attached to the basilica church of San Giovanni in Laterano.

He had been to the palace to present his petition on behalf of his Order when first he had arrived in Rome. Whilst there, he had been horrified by the sumptuous living and daily luxuries commanded by even the lowest of the attendant clergy. The contrast between those who governed the Church and those who worshipped at its altars had seemed immoral to Martin, and so now he frowned over at Gabriel.

"Where are you going?"

"And where are you going? Why, to the Scala Sancta, of course. It's Friday and it's Lent, and that means indulgences for all." Gabriel slanted him a mischievous look. "Don't tell me that you were going to miss this opportunity to free your departed loved ones from Purgatory?"

Martin winced. "Of course not. But… Well. I am not so sure that an indulgence is quite the way to go about it."

Gabriel stopped in the crowd and looked at him for a long moment, and then he nodded. "Good," he said, more to him self than to Martin, or so it seemed; and then he gestured to the Scala Sancta and said, "Come on. I'll race you to the top."

Martin laughed at that. He began to push forwards, buffeted by the jostling pilgrims who were trying to form some semblance of a queue at the bottom of the sacred steps. The Scala Sancta was alive with a mass of people ascending on their knees, bending to kiss the white marble and then raising themselves to gaze heavenwards as they prayed. It seemed to him that the whole of humanity was there, all ready and eager to try for a chance to escape Purgatory.

When Martin glanced back, he could not see Gabriel anywhere. He turned around, looking for the angel, and was about to leave his place in the queue when a voice behind him sounded in a bored, pre-emptory tone: "Name of deceased and relation?"

Martin swung round to face the haughty-looking Dominican friar who'd addressed him. He took a moment to gather his wits, then answered, "Heindrich Luther; grandfather."

The Dominican tapped the strongbox. Martin fished out a coin from his purse and dropped it inside the box. He heard it land with a dull clink upon a pile of other coins, and wondered briefly just how much money that box contained.

The friar's clerk handed him a piece of paper that had the details of the indulgence recorded upon it in cramped and smudged Latin print. A blank space at the bottom of the sheet indicated that he should fill in the name of his grandfather, or anybody else he wished to release from Purgatory.

"An 'Our Father' on every step. When you reach the top, Heindrich will be released from Purgatory and enter the Gates of Heaven," the friar recited blandly.

Martin paused, wanting something more—some indication that this was truly what would happen, that his grandfather would be free of the dreary existence of human souls outside Heaven—but the Dominican friar had already turned his attention to the next person in the queue.

"Name of deceased and relation…?"

Martin clutched his indulgence and approached the Scala Sancta. The twenty-eight steps rose above him, tacked onto the side of the Lateran palace with only a makeshift cover high above to protect the holy staircase that Jesus Christ had ascended to meet with Pontius Pilate. The steps had been brought back from the Holy Land by Helena, the mother of the most blessed emperor Constantine the Great, who had built the first church on this very site over one thousand years ago…

The weight of history and faith nearly crushed Martin, and so he fell to his knees along with the other pilgrims. He shuffled to the first step, bowed his head, and began to pray.

_I'll race you to the top._

Martin looked around for the source of that voice. He could not see Gabriel amongst the crowds beside him. Finishing his first prayer, he crawled up onto the step and bent to kiss the second. He remained self-conscious as he climbed eight more steps, his prayers faltering. All around him, men and women moved by rote, manipulated like puppets on a string, ever onwards and upwards to salvation.

He crawled onto the next step and halted there. "Where are you?" he whispered, knowing that his voice would be lost to the prayers of thousands.

There was no reply. He got to his feet. The people around him cried at the sacrilege. Some reached up to tug at his black robes, trying to make him kneel again. Martin shook them off without thinking. He climbed the steps slowly, looking this way and that, searching the crowd for Gabriel.

Instead, he saw human beings wallowing in misery, labouring up the marble steps in the midday heat on hands and knees worn down with age, with poverty, or with the weight of their belief. Their expressions were rapt as they lifted their heads to pray. The sound of the _Pater Nostra_ rose and fell like a wave, the same words in a dozen different accents.

Martin wondered, in his confusion, if this was what Babel had sounded like. "Where are you?" he cried, lifting up his arms, the indulgence clutched in his right hand. When there was no answer, and the crowd moved past him, Martin shook his head as if to clear it. He muttered to himself, "Where am I?"

He crushed the indulgence, dropped it onto the sacred steps, and then began to walk back down the way he'd come.


	4. Chapter 4

"Where are you?" Carl repeated, a little confused. "Really, Van Helsing, I know you have a penchant for amnesia, but surely you can't have forgotten where you are already."

"What?" Gabriel snapped his attention back to the present and looked at Carl for a moment or two before he remem bered. "Yes. I know. We're in Civitavecchia."

Carl gave him a concerned glance. "Good. Because I'd have been worried if you really didn't know where you were."

"I know where I am." Gabriel's tone suggested that he didn't want to discuss this anymore. He picked up the tankard of beer that sat on the table in front of him and took a slow sip. As he drank, Gabriel looked surreptitiously around the room.

It was a tavern—clean and prosperous, with merchants, pil grims and tourists seated at various tables or standing at the bar. Their mode of dress startled Gabriel for a moment until he remembered what century he was in. He had to force himself to look over at Carl to make sure that it was the Franciscan friar and not Martin Luther who was sitting with him beside the fire.

"Van Helsing, are you absolutely sure you're all right?" Carl asked. "It's just that… well, you don't seem to be yourself."

Gabriel put down his beer and sighed deeply. "I'll be fine. What were you saying?"

Carl frowned, clearly unconvinced, but he let the matter drop. "We were waiting for our dinner. I haven't eaten all day, save for that disgusting gruel that those in the refectory see fit to call porridge."

"It is porridge."

"We ate better porridge shipboard, when we were bound for Transylvania."

Gabriel nodded absently. "Well, you know that was fla voured with weevils…"

Carl looked ill. "Really?"

"Uh-huh."

"Oh."

Carl turned to look into the fire, his lips pressed tightly together. If it had been anyone else, then Gabriel would have been tempted to laugh. But because it was Carl, and he knew just how sheltered the friar's life had been, then he could find no humour in the situation. Instead he cleared his throat and gestured towards a maidservant carrying a tray.

"Never mind. Look, here's our dinner."

Gabriel couldn't remember what he'd ordered, so the dishes placed upon their table were a surprise to him. A veal steak; a salad of tomatoes, mozzarella and basil; linguine with mushrooms and pesto; gnocchi drizzled with garlic oil; and a bottle of dark red Montepulciano wine. It looked and smelled almost Heaven-sent.

At a loss as to what dish was his, he selected the plate closest to him and jabbed a fork into the gnocchi.

"I ordered the gnocchi," Carl said, sounding hurt.

"Sorry." Gabriel pushed the plate over towards him. "I couldn't remember."

"But you were remembering something."

"Yes." He hoped that he could leave it at that, but Carl had forgotten his sulk and was looking at him with the greatest curiosity, and so he said, "I remembered Martin Luther."

"Luther?" Carl blinked. "But why? Was it because you said the Etruscans were like Lutherans?"

"I don't know. Maybe. The strangest things can trigger my memories, sometimes." Gabriel reached for the breadbasket and tore off a piece of bread, then arranged a slice of tomato and a slice of mozzarella on top of it.

"What are they like, your memories?"

"They're…" Gabriel frowned as the mozzarella fell off the bread and onto his plate. "They're not just my memories. It's more like a flashback or a time-slip, but if I was… involved with one of the participants then, I remember their thoughts and feelings as well as mine."

Carl snatched the piece of mozzarella before Van Helsing could reclaim it. "That's very useful. Or isn't it?"

Gabriel gave him a level look. "How would you like it if I knew your innermost thoughts right now?"

"Ah. I see." Carl blushed pink. "But… you can't, can you? Read my mind, I mean?"

"Nope. I'm not your guardian angel, Carl. If I was, then I'd know everything there was to know about you."

Carl's eyes widened in alarm. "Good grief. So who _is_ my guardian angel? I mean, do you know? And—and do you know them personally?"

Gabriel snorted. He took a bite of the bread and tomato, chewed and swallowed, and then said, "I don't know who your guardian angel is. I'm assuming you still have one, and the system hasn't changed since I… well. Since I became a demon-hunter."

He helped himself to more bread. "There is one thing, though. It seems that my memories tend to come back when ever I'm up against something puzzling."

Carl ate two forkfuls of gnocchi and a mushroom; then he poured the wine but did not drink from his cup. Instead, he curved one hand around its belly as if to warm it or to protect it from the heat of the fire. Then he said: "Chen, my Buddhist colleague, told me about one of his beliefs. He said that when something puzzles him, such as a formula or the answer to a problem, he simply clears his mind and waits for the solution to present itself. Because, or so he says, we already hold the answers to everything in our minds. It's just a matter of accessing it in the proper way."

He seemed to be relieved about moving from the topic of guardian angels to something more within his control, and he relaxed as he glanced up at Gabriel. "Van Helsing, I think that your memories might work in the same way. For example, your memory in Transylvania…"

"Masada." Gabriel winced. "Sacrifice. And that was what the Valerious family became—a sacrifice. Anna and Velkan both, in different ways. Damn it." He reached for his tank ard, drained it of beer, and then picked up the wine-cup.

"And now you remember Martin Luther," Carl said pen sively. He stared into his own wine-cup fixedly, like an haruspex. "You mentioned predestination."

Gabriel sighed. "It was a joke, Carl. A joke. You said yourself, we don't know what the Etruscans believed."

"No. But I have a feeling that somebody did." He twisted his fork in the mound of linguine and ate some of the pasta, biting neatly through the trailing ends.

"Who?" Gabriel asked. "And do we need to worry about them?"

Carl shook his head. "Oh, no. At least, I hope not. They're dead."

"It won't be the first time that dead people have come after me," Gabriel said darkly. "I really hate having to kill some one twice. It seems so unfair."

"Well," said Carl briskly, finally lifting his wine-cup, "at least it shows the power of predestination, yes?"

Gabriel snorted. "I can see why you're still only a friar."

"Actually, Van Helsing, I prefer being a friar. There's so much more freedom in taking minor orders rather than major orders."

"I don't think I want to know. Hey," and Gabriel raised his own cup, "let's have a toast to the speedy deliverance of this Etruscan demon."

"I'll drink to that," Carl said with feeling, and they clinked their cups together.

One or the other of them was a little too enthusiastic, and some of the wine slopped from the cups to drip onto the table. The droplets of dark red gathered into a small puddle.

Carl muttered and picked up a corner of his cloak to wipe away the wine, but Gabriel stopped him.

"Hmm," he said, scribbling a finger through the liquid, "I wonder if that was what it was…"

"What was what? Van Helsing, are you rambling again?" Carl asked.

"No—just thinking."

"Well, that's dangerous for a start."

"I'm serious, Carl." He looked up from the spill of wine. "What did Bonate say about the demon when he saw it?"

"That it had attacked his dog and killed it," Carl said. "With an axe."

"Demons don't usually go around swinging weapons. They have teeth and claws, and they use them in a fight," Gabriel said slowly.

"So you don't think it was a demon."

"I'm not ruling out that possibility. But… I think we should be careful."

"_I_ am always careful," Carl stated. "I even brought my laboratory goggles along, just in case there was any unstable matter that should happen to spray around."

"Yeah. Goggles would be a lot of help against an axe-wielding demon."

Carl picked at the dishes in front of him, cutting up a large, flat mushroom into tiny pieces and then burying them beneath the tumble of linguine. "I had to bring something, Van Helsing. Just to feel useful. Because…"

"You are useful, Carl," Gabriel said softly. "I'd be lost with out you."

Carl abandoned the linguine and looked up. "Really?" He smiled, relieved. "That's good. I'd hate it if that demon decided to cut me open with its axe so it could drink my blood, like it did with that poor dog, just because my field work skills aren't up to scratch."

Gabriel stared at him as Carl's words jogged something into place. "It wasn't drinking the dog's blood."

"Maybe because Signor Bonate interrupted its foul work."

"No." Gabriel shook his head. "I don't think it killed the dog as food. Not in the way we think about it, anyway."

Carl took another helping of gnocchi. "Really, Van Hel sing?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full. No—the dog wasn't food. Its blood was."

"You mean—" Carl swallowed his food quickly and nearly choked. He grabbed for his wine-cup and took a gulp, then sat back in his chair and tried again. "You mean the demon was making a libation?"

"That's precisely what I think. It's just like transubstantiation—as the wafer and wine become the body and blood of Christ, giving spiritual nourishment to the living, so libation blood gives spiritual nourishment to the dead."

"But the Eucharist is never celebrated alone," Carl said, wide-eyed.

"And that's what I'm afraid of. Our demon could be the leader of a whole damn congregation of demons, all clam ouring for their next drop of blood."

Gabriel set his cutlery down on top of the nearest plate and then got to his feet. "We should go to bed. There's no way of knowing what tomorrow will bring."

"Yes, we do," said Carl. He snatched up a final piece of gnocchi and popped it into his mouth, saying around it, "Tomorrow will bring blue demons with a liking for blood."

"I didn't need to be reminded of that, thank you."

"Peace, Van Helsing." Carl smiled. "Everything happens for a reason."

"Yeah," Gabriel said softly, as he turned away. "That's what they say."


	5. Chapter 5

"Everything happens for a reason," Martin said placidly. "I don't need anybody, not even an angel, to tell me that."

He was sitting on a bench in the castle antechamber, waiting to be summoned by the aide to Cardinal Cajetan. Martin was pleased that the Pope's envoy had travelled to Augsburg to meet him. The bull had ordered him to go to Rome to answer charges of sedition against the church, and Martin had no intention of ever returning to Rome. That moment upon the Scala Sancta had been something of an epiphany.

"God's mercy is not to be found in indulgences, but in the love of Christ," he said. "Tell me I'm right in my belief, Gabriel."

The angel shrugged. "I'm not here to agree with your doctrines."

"But you saved me for a reason." Martin got up from the bench and approached Gabriel, who stood beside the win dow. "You said yourself that God has a plan for me."

"God has a plan for all His subjects."

"Yes, yes…" Martin flapped a hand dismissively, his eyes bright with annoyance. "But I—I am special, am I not?"

Gabriel smiled with genuine affection. "You are to me."

It was not the answer that Martin wanted, and so he let go of Gabriel's hands and moved away to kick idly at the wooden bench. "Tell me what you are."

"You already know what I am."

"An angel. An archangel. The left hand of God." Martin stopped kicking the bench and sat down upon it abruptly.

"Yes," said Gabriel, moving from the window. "But I am something else, too. You have heard of guardian angels? Well, I am yours, in a manner of speaking."

Martin laughed, a nervous, fluttery sound. "And why would someone such as I merit an archangel to be my guardian?"

"Perhaps because you will need a lot of courage in the days to come."

"You were not with me when I wrote my Ninety-Five Theses," Martin said thoughtfully. "I did not need courage when I pinned my theses to the door of Wittenberg cathedral. All I felt was the injustice of the matter."

He jumped to his feet, unable to sit still. "That Inquisitor, Tetzel—how dare he terrify my people with threats of hellfire and eternal damnation, roasting his own hand over the fire to scare them into parting with their coins! That is not preaching, Gabriel—that is a kind of blackmail!"

"Your people, Martin Luther?" Gabriel raised his eye brows. "Be careful what you say. That is treason. The people of Wittenberg are not yours."

"No, they are not." Martin scrubbed his hands through his hair, disturbing the neatness of the tonsure. "They belong to God, but I am their priest, and so I speak with the authority of the Church, and…"

"The same Church that accuses you of heresy."

Martin whirled around. "It is the Emperor Maximilian who so accuses me. The Pope wants to know what I have to say. I have written to His Holiness before, concerning the sale of indulgences. And now, has he not sent one of his favourite cardinals to meet with me?"

As Martin strode restlessly back and forth across the ante chamber in a whirl of black, Gabriel's voice was calming. "Cajetan is a clever man and a fine politician. That is why I am here. You might need the kind of protection only an archangel can offer."

Martin stopped and turned to stare at him. "And what is that, pray tell?"

"The power to sway another man's thinking."

"I am a lawyer and a priest. I should be able to argue my way around most issues and convince both a jury and a con gregation of the truth of my intent."

"Oh, and you will, Martin. You will." Gabriel walked to wards him and touched Martin's face. "But it is one thing to convince people with your words, and quite another to make those words take root and grow."

Martin's expression softened slightly, and he was about to speak when the door at the other end of the antechamber opened to admit a grey-haired, middle-aged man. Martin smiled when he recognised his spiritual father, the abbot of the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, but when he turned around to make the introductions, Gabriel was gone.

"Talking to your devils again, Martin?"

"No, Father. Not this time."

After a few minutes of conversation, an aide came to summon him. The abbot clutched Martin's hands and said he would pray for him.

The interview began. Martin had been told what to expect. He knew that this was not an invitation for debate, but a formal chance for him to recant. Cajetan's aide had already instructed him on the way he should prostrate himself before the cardinal, and on the one word he was expected to say: _revoco_—'I recant'.

Martin did his best to seem meek and biddable. He could tell that Cardinal Cajetan was pleased; so pleased, in fact, that when Martin rose to his knees to make his recantation, the cardinal invited his comments on the situation.

Martin took a deep breath. "We both know the selling of indulgences has no Scriptural support," he began, aware of the watchful gazes of Gabriel, the abbot, and Cajetan's aide, as well as Cajetan himself. "If common people could read the Bible, they would see for themselves just how broad the Church's interpretations are."

"That is outrageous!" Cajetan sat forwards. The dark stone in his ring of office flashed in the light as he moved. "The Scriptures are too complex for even the average priest to understand, much less the common man. Indulgences are an established tradition that give comfort to millions of simple Christians."

Martin choked back an exclamation and then said, "Com fort! Your Grace, I am not interested in comfort. Comfort is not the issue!"

There was a moment of shocked silence, and then Cajetan demanded, "So you consider your discomfort to be more important than the survival of Christianity?"

Martin shook his head. "I'm interested in the truth!"

The interview was terminated not long after. Cajetan had swept off in a blaze of scarlet, his aide trailing after him. The abbot of Erfurt had pleaded with Martin to flee Augsburg before he could be arrested—and then he had forced him to kneel and had placed his hands on Martin's head, revoking the Orders that Martin had taken over a decade earlier.

"He has exiled me from the Order," Martin told Gabriel as he paced the floor of the antechamber once more. "He told me it was for my own good—and so he did not have to perjure himself when the Inquisitors came to fetch me."

He stared wildly at the angel, expecting a response. When he got none, he continued, "Oh, I know under canon law they'd be obliged to give me up. Sheltering a heretic! But I'm not. Not a heretic. Gabriel, I'm not!"

Martin shook his head and then held out a hand in appeal. "You were supposed to help me!"

Gabriel folded his arms across his chest. "I did, Martin. I hardened Cajetan's heart against you. Secretly he knows that you speak the truth, but it is easy to make him turn away. He is, after all, a politician—and politicians follow the path of least resistance."

Martin moved around slowly, staring at Gabriel with an expression of horror. "You turned him? But why! You be trayed me…"

Gabriel went towards him. "Your future lies outside this church."

"But I don't want to be outside the Church!" Martin cried. "I just want reform! Justice against the… the injustices that are done daily to the common people! Some measure of truth amidst the fabrication of so many lies…"

He broke off, moved to tears of frustration and despair. His voice was broken when he whispered, "Is that too much to ask?"

Gabriel did not answer.

Martin slumped against him, hiding his face as he clung tight to the angel. "Oh, God," he said, his voice muffled. "Don't let me go."


	6. Chapter 6

"Don't let me go."

Gabriel realised that he'd spoken those words aloud—and worse, during an intimate manoeuvre that brought him much closer to Carl in their bed.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Carl said in reply, wrapping his arms around him.

Gabriel did not want any memories of Martin Luther, Cardi nal Cajetan, Pope Julius II or any other Renaissance inhabitant intruding into his time with Carl. He hoped that hiding underneath the sheet and burying himself in Carl's body would be enough to anchor him in the present.

Two hours later, Gabriel was pacing across a faded Ottoman carpet while Carl hummed and hawed his way through a collection of ancient texts. After a brief breakfast of bread-rolls and conserves, Carl had insisted that they should go to the Church of the Virgin on the outskirts of Civitavecchia. The priest in charge, Father Giuseppe, was a Franciscan who had spent some time in the Vatican with Carl. In addition to his priestly duties, Father Giuseppe taught Classical history and languages in the town's school, and had amassed a fine collection of books.

It was to these books that Carl now applied himself. Gabriel decided to stay out of the way, as every time he went any where near Carl and the pile of books, he was waved away with a glare.

"I'm working."

"You look cute when you're working."

"Van Helsing!" Carl tilted his head towards the door, through which they could both hear Father Giuseppe singing tunelessly as he searched for more books.

"I won't tell him if you don't."

"There's nothing to tell," Carl said with a sniff, and he snapped shut one book and opened another. "If you really want to be useful, then you can carry these back to their shelves."

Another hour passed, and Gabriel was getting bored. The morning was almost over, and it seemed that they had achieved very little. He coloured slightly, realising that it was entirely his fault that they hadn't made an early start for Tarquinia, and resolved to be more patient.

Noon arrived, and with it came grey skies from the sea. Gabriel watched the waves crest and fall, concerned that the change in weather would bring rain for the afternoon. Tarquinia was not far distant, but if he had a choice, he'd prefer to do his demon-slaying when he was warm and dry.

"Aha!" Carl thumped the desk with his fist. "Found it!"

"This better be good," Gabriel said as he hurried towards him.

Carl gave him a look that suggested that he'd better find this impressive, or else—and then he said, "I found it in Censori nus, who paraphrases Varro—now there was a man who knew what he was talking about! I don't suppose you—"

"No," Gabriel said quickly, "I never met Varro. Hurry up with this, will you?"

"I say," said Carl, but he did as he was told, pointing to the Latin passage and translating it as he followed the words with his forefinger. "The Etruscans divide the lifetime of man into ten seven-year periods. They also believe that it is possible by prayers to persuade the gods to postpone the moment of death, but that a man who lives past his allotted time of seventy years is a man hardly more than a body without a soul, and the gods turn their faces away from him."

Carl turned the book around to show Gabriel. "See, Van Helsing? You were right about Etruscan predestination."

"Yeah." Gabriel glanced briefly at the Latin text. "I wonder how many of these people were hit with an axe before they reached their seventieth birthday."

"You mean, like a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

"Exactly."

Carl blinked. "Surely they wouldn't. Because that wouldn't be predestined, would it? Not by their gods, at any rate. That would be the priests trying to control the masses through fear and… oh."

"Oh?"

"I think I see why your memories are of Martin Luther." Carl closed the book and placed it on top of the pile. "Come on, Van Helsing," he said. "Let's finish this."


	7. Chapter 7

"Let us finish this!"

Listening to their excited cries, Martin stood beneath the oak tree and looked at his students and colleagues. They were standing around a small fire that they'd made near the base of the tree, and the wavering heat distorted their faces. For a moment, Martin thought they looked like demons.

"They burned your books, Dr. Luther!"

"They would burn you too, if they could!"

Martin smiled and held up his hands to quieten them. "Yes, they burned my books—but for what? Heresy? Treason? Or just kindling?"

Laughter greeted his words, and then the crowd settled down again to listen.

Martin reached into his robes and took out a scroll. He let it unfurl, and everybody leaned forwards. They all knew what it was, of course—copies of the edict had been posted in every city and town in Saxony—but this was the first time that any of them had seen the original document.

He lifted up the papal bull _Exsurge Domine_, letting them see the elegant Latin script and the red seals affixed to the bot tom of the parchment.

"I knew they would send this. I've known for months that it was only a matter of time." His smile softened. "You probably know that the students in Erfurt tore up a copy of this bull on my behalf and threw it into the river. It was very kind of them to think of me. Not all students are so considerate of their masters."

More laughter. Martin waited for it to fade before he brandished the bull, clenching it tight in his hand as if it was an indulgence.

"But this is a document that I cannot ignore. Look! It even quotes Scripture: 'Arise, Lord, and defend thine own vine yard against the wild beast that is devouring it'—and after all my attempts to emphasise Scripture over the word of man, then it would be careless of me to ignore it."

He paused; looked around at the attentive faces. "I am supposed to be this wild beast, and yet I say that the Church is destroying itself without my help. I asked for reform, not revolution. I challenged an issue on which canon law cannot agree. I did not want this, but neither will I recant. I am doing what I think is right. It seems to me to be God's Will. I would take back the Church to its humble beginnings, before indulgences and heresies and corruption, back to the Truth—the irrefutable Truth.

"And where is this Truth?" Martin demanded. "It lies in the Scriptures; in the Bible that none save a priest can under stand, and even then Rome says they understand poorly."

Martin gazed around the fire at his colleagues and students, and saw that they were spellbound, waiting for his final words.

"It is time, friends. It is time that the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ were made plain for all to read. No longer shall the New Testament be for the elite, be they priest or bishop, nobleman or pope, but it shall be for every man! A common Bible in the common tongue!"

The crowd began to mutter, and then to cheer: "Yes! A Ger man Bible for the German people!"

Buoyed by their acclamations and support, Martin balled up the papal bull and flung it into the fire. He stared down at the parchment as the flames caught it, watching as it curled black before disintegrating. The red wax seals melted and ran red like the blood of martyrs.

"I do not ignore you," Martin whispered, "but I am done with your deceit. Do your worst. I am already free."

After the fire died, and when the streets were full of news about what he had done, Martin stumbled up the stairs to his university rooms and bolted the door behind him. He stared at the faint reflection presented to him in the grimy window, and did not know whether he looked at Luther the priest or Luther the scholar.

"I am priest no longer," he said aloud. "Just a scholar. Just a lawyer."

"You are still a priest." Gabriel appeared beside him, not bothering to shed glamour over his physical form so that for the first time, Martin could see his wings.

"Gabriel." Martin turned to face him. "Perhaps you did not know, but… I have been excommunicated. Or I will be very soon, once word of what I have done gets back to Rome… Oh, God! I burned a papal bull!"

"How do you feel?"

Martin laughed briefly. "My friends are victorious. The peasants seem to think I am encouraging rebellion. Prince Frederick is pleased, too; even if it does put him in an awkward position with his nephew, the Emperor…"

Gabriel's wings lifted in a sigh. "Martin. I asked how you felt about this."

There was a pause, and then he said, his voice sinking to a whisper, "I am terrified." Martin glanced up at Gabriel. "All my life I have lived according to the tenets of the Church. Oh, I have questioned it, and I have railed against God and struggled against demons, and yes, I stand by what I said regarding indulgences and the corruption of prelates and everything else! But… I am a good Christian at heart. If I were not, then I would never have started this."

"That's why you were Chosen," Gabriel said softly.

Martin closed his eyes and shivered. "But I am afraid."

He felt Gabriel's fingers in his hair, stroking it free of the tonsure, and then he heard Gabriel's voice, soft but stern.

"Jesus was afraid. Who are you to reject his example?"

"Jesus was the Church. I stand outside it and am damned."

"Have faith, Martin." Gabriel gathered him into his arms and held him tight. "Do you remember your Theology classes when you first went to university at Erfurt?"

"It was so long ago…" Martin murmured, his head still on Gabriel's chest.

"The example of Cyprian's statement about the Greek Church," Gabriel reminded him. "Do you remember that?"

Martin nodded. He sniffed, and his voice was small as he began, "The Fourth Lateran Council declared that Cyprian could be wrong when he said that salvation could not be found outside the Roman Church."

"Of course he was wrong," Gabriel said.

Martin's teeth were chattering. "Salvation can be found outside the Church, but not outside Christ."

"Then know that you are not alone," Gabriel promised, pressing a kiss into Martin's hair. "You are never alone."

They stood together a moment longer. Martin's shivers finally stopped as the shock of what he'd done began to sink in, but he did not move free of the angel's embrace. Rather, he felt a longing for more, even as Gabriel tried to step back.

"Gabriel," Martin asked, reluctantly letting go but standing as close as he dared to the angel, "have you ever lain with a mortal?"

Gabriel dropped his gaze. "I cannot answer that question."

Martin reached out tentatively to stroke the feathers of Gabriel's wings. "I would like—that is, if it is permitted…" he began.

"It breaks all the rules."

"You have encouraged me to break the rules. To rewrite the rule-book, even," Martin argued, "and now you tell me that rule-breaking is bad!"

Gabriel shook his head. "What is right for men may not be right for angels."

Martin stared at him, challenging him. "How do you know, unless you try?"

"Martin Luther," Gabriel said with a smile, "you are truly incorrigible."


	8. Chapter 8

"Was he?" Carl asked petulantly. "And did you?"

Gabriel snapped back to the present so quickly that he nearly fell from his horse's saddle. "What? Carl—what did you say?"

"You were muttering about Luther again." Carl looked very put out. "Well, Van Helsing, did you or didn't you?"

"Do what?"

"Sleep with him, of course. Did you sleep with Martin Luther?"

Gabriel considered telling a lie, but then answered truthfully: "Yes."

"I see." Carl's hands tightened on the reins of his horse.

"Are you jealous?"

"Me? Jealous? Of a Protestant?"

"Not just any old Protestant, but the man who started it all…"

"Of course I'm not jealous. What a ridiculous notion."

"That's good. Only, Martin's been dead for three hundred and fifty years, and I'd hate for you to think that I was still carrying a torch for him or something."

Carl gave him a suspicious glance. "Hmm."

Gabriel decided it would be best if he let the subject drop. Instead he glanced around to see where they were. The Via Aurelia he recognised well enough—the road had not improved when they'd left Civitavecchia—and he could hear running water away to his right.

"Are we nearly at Tarquinia?" he asked, prodding the horse so he could catch up with Carl.

"Yes. It's between two rivers, and we just crossed the first one. It's closer to the second, though." Carl pointed to a ridge ahead of them. "There it is. If you look closely, you can just about see the shapes of the tombs."

Gabriel did as he was told. "They look like beehives."

They tethered their horses just clear of the roadside. Carl opened the large bag he'd brought with him and began to dole out items as if he were Santa Claus.

"Stakes, garlic—I know it's not a vampire, but you never know—holy water, a crucifix, splinters from the True Cross…"

"Where on earth did you get those from?" Gabriel wondered.

Carl gave him a blank look. "From the True Cross, of course." He bent his head and groped around in the bag some more. "A holy water pistol—that's enormous fun. Nuri and I got Cardinal Jinette with it when we were testing it."

"Did he melt?"

"Cardinal Jinette? Of course not. Really, Van Helsing. Do grow up." Carl reached into the bag and finally lifted out the gas-propelled crossbow, which he handed to Gabriel.

"At last, something useful."

"Everything I make has some useful application some where," Carl said primly as he took out his laboratory goggles and set them atop his head. "Right. Where's this demon, then?"

They walked up the slope, feeling the late afternoon sun warm on their backs. The necropolis looked pleasant, filled with lush green grass and wildflowers, with sparrows twitter ing and flitting from one raised mound to the next. There was no sense of evil, just of peace and stillness.

Gabriel moved to look inside the tombs that had open doors, calling "Clear" each time he checked one.

Carl clambered up onto the top of one of the larger tombs, shaded his eyes with his hands, and looked around the expanse of the necropolis.

"There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of the things," he reported. "We'll never be able to search them all by night fall."

Gabriel looked up at him. "We might not have to."

"What do you mean?"

"You're standing on a tomb. You wouldn't stand on some body's grave, now, would you?"

"Oh dear," said Carl fretfully. "You're absolutely right. I'll just…"

What do you want?

"Van Helsing!" Carl exclaimed, standing stock-still.

"Yeah, I heard it." Gabriel jumped up onto the tomb beside him and turned around slowly, the crossbow held ready in his arms. "And I just found it, too."

Carl followed his example and turned around. He gave a little yelp when he saw the demon standing on the tomb opposite them.

It was huge and blue, with elongated limbs and masses of gold jewellery, just as Paoli Bonate had said. It had red hair and dark wings, and a curly beard down to the middle of its chest. Across its back was strapped an axe, but the demon made no move to grab the weapon and use it against them. Instead it looked at them with curiosity and asked again: _What do you want?_

"You." Gabriel lifted the crossbow.

"Van Helsing!" Carl forgot his fear as he remembered his duty. He jumped in front of Gabriel, blocking his aim. "You can't go around just killing things!"

"Why not? It's always worked for me in the past."

Carl tutted and then began to search his robes for a notebook and pencil. "Yes, but I'm with you now, so there'll be no more of this random slaying. At least, not until we've got a few answers. Then you can kill it."

Gabriel shouldered his crossbow. "You scientist types are so merciful."

"Somebody has to be. Now," and Carl turned to the demon, "would you be so kind as to state your name and belief system? It's for the Vatican records. You'll be remembered by posterity."

"I don't think it cares much about that."

The demon looked at them, tugging at its red hair and then stroking its beard as if in thought. Finally it said, _I am Charun_.

Carl looked up from his notebook. "Charon? The Greek god that ferried the dead across the River Styx? That Charon?"

_Not Charon. Charun._

"Oh, I see. I do apologise." Carl made a note and then turned to Gabriel. "But don't you think that's terribly derivative? Charon, Charun—I can barely tell the difference, and I'm an educated man, so what a simple Etruscan peasant is supposed to do is beyond me…"

"Carl," muttered Gabriel, "shut up."

"I'm nervous. I talk a lot when I'm nervous. Don't tell me you hadn't noticed that fact, Van Helsing."

"I was hoping you'd grown out of it."

"That's unlikely, isn't it? Really, you do make the most idiotic remarks." Carl glanced down at his notebook and was alarmed to see just how badly his hands were shaking. He could scarcely read his own handwriting. Gathering his courage, he looked up at the demon again and said, "Mr. Charun, may I ask why you have an axe?"

The demon appeared to be puzzled by such a question. _To free the souls of the departed._

"Paoli Bonate's dog was alive," Carl said accusingly. "You killed it."

It was an animal. Animals are worthy sacrifice.

"He has a valid point," Gabriel agreed.

"Shut up," Carl hissed. "I'm a Franciscan. I'm supposed to like animals."

_The animal gave its blood as a libation to feed the souls of the dead,_ Charun said. _We have been for many years without suitable offerings. _

"What changed, then?" asked Gabriel. "Why did you decide to manifest now, when you've been content to play dead for centuries?"

_There was a call,_ the demon said vaguely. _All of the Ancient Ones are beginning to stir in answer to it. I am only the first._

"I don't like the sound of that," Carl whispered.

"Nor do I." Gabriel hefted the crossbow again. "What kind of call was this? Where did it come from?"

Charun shrugged. _We will all know in time. Then there will be sacrifices for all, and none shall forget the demands of their ancestors again._

Carl nodded to the weapon that the demon wore strapped across his back. "And then I suppose you'll go around swinging that axe at everyone," he said with disgust.

I do not kill humans with it.

"A likely story. Did you hear that?" Carl asked, turning to Gabriel before he looked back at the demon. "Yes, I suppose you did. Well, then: and how do you free the souls of the departed—cut their heads off?"

Charun regarded him with unwavering yellow eyes. _I open their skulls._

Carl swung around the face Gabriel. "Ah! Trepanation! Of course!"

"Carl…"

"Post-mortem trepanation. Which is very interesting, because…"

"Carl!"

He fell silent for a moment, looking up at Gabriel quizzi cally. "Yes? What is it, Van Helsing?"

"It's gone," Gabriel said, not without amusement.

Carl blinked. "What?"

"The demon. Charun. It's gone."

"Where?" Now he turned this way and that, as if suspecting that the demon was hiding just around the corner of the tombs. "Where did it go?"

Gabriel shrugged. "How should I know? Probably got fed up listening to you spouting on about post-mortem trepanation."

"Ah." Carl wilted with dejection. "I'm sorry."

Gabriel waved away the apology and sat down on top of the tomb, setting the crossbow at his feet. "Doesn't matter."

"It does," Carl moaned, sinking to his knees beside him and clenching his hands together. "There's a great big blue Etruscan demon on the loose, with a horrible red beard and an axe, and it's all my fault!"

"C'mon, it's no big deal."

Carl hadn't heard him. "What will we do, Van Helsing?

"We let it go."

"Let it go? But… but…"

Gabriel pulled at Carl's sleeve until he sat down beside him on the grass. "I get the feeling we'll see Charun again someday soon," Gabriel said quietly. "Him and the rest of his demonic friends. So we don't need to go looking for him. In fact, they'll probably find us."

"Oh. Well," said Carl after a moment or two, bemused. "That was easy."

"Predestined," Gabriel said, giving him a wink.

Still uncertain, Carl grumbled: "So the Etruscans were right, then."

"Yep." Gabriel tipped his hat forwards and then lay back on the grass, obviously ready to enjoy the rest of the sunlight.

"And Martin Luther?"

Gabriel closed his eyes and smiled. "He was right, too."

"Free will?"

"Yeah. Free will. But it doesn't do us a damn bit of good if we don't have the courage to use it." He opened one eye to see Carl looking at him, and said, "You would have liked Martin. In some ways, he reminds me of you. Or you remind me of him. The two of you are very similar, anyway, and… very different. It wasn't until Martin knew there was no way back that he really flung himself into his work. He wasn't out to cause trouble. He just wanted to right a wrong."

"And then look what happened," Carl said irritably, not at all mollified by the comparison.

"Dear me, Carl. What is it? You object to being compared with Martin Luther, or you object to the fact that I have a past?" Gabriel asked, amused.

Carl put his nose in the air and affected unconcern. "Neither. My interest is in sensible matters. I just want to know how there can be both predestination and free will—"

Gabriel interrupted. "If it helps, I prefer you to Martin."

"Oh, stop it!" Carl gave him a glance, half annoyed and half flattered.

"God has a plan, Carl. We just don't know what it is yet."

Carl sighed. "Well, I _do_ know that unless we get back and file our report—especially if there's some terrible demonic plot against mankind—then God's earthly representative Cardinal Jinette will be greatly displeased with us."

"I guess that's predestined, too, huh?"

"Yes, it is."

"In which case—since it's going to happen anyway," Gabriel said with a lazy grin, "then why don't we exercise a bit of free will and put off going back to Rome for a bit, hmm?"

Carl batted at Gabriel's hands as they stroked along his thigh. "But shouldn't we warn someone about this terrible demonic plot?"

Gabriel rolled onto his side. "All in good time. Terrible demonic plots don't hatch overnight, you know."

"I see your point. But—but… Cardinal Jinette won't like it."

"No. But I will."

"Van Helsing!" Carl allowed himself to be pulled down onto the grass. "Didn't you say this was a tomb? Don't you think this is a bit… disrespectful?"

"They won't mind," Gabriel said briefly. "They're dead."

"Van Helsing!"


End file.
